My Word: More focus on kids' mental health

September 9, 2013|By Peggy Symons

Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs' bold move charging the new Youth Mental Health Committee with proposing real changes in children's mental-health services not only legitimized the suffering of children with untreated mental illness, it focused a light on mental illness in general.

Jacobs understands that the toll and consequences of neglecting these illnesses is too great to ignore.

Seventy percent of the children locked in the nation's juvenile-justice system have some form of a mental illness. Clearly, our approach to mental illnesses in children is a junior version of the well-known and disastrously expensive criminalization of adults who should also be in hospitals or cost-effective community care.

The neurobiological nature of mental illness is well-established, but people with these treatable disorders of the brain, including our children, continue to deal with stigma and discrimination. Inappropriate incarceration of children is part of a disturbing picture of untreated mental illnesses.

According to the Florida Suicide Prevention Coalition, suicide is the third-leading cause of death for children ages 5 to 14. Suicide is an inherent risk for both children and adults with mental illnesses. Access to timely and effective psychiatric intervention for these individuals is a lifeline.

But every year, our legislators make policy and funding decisions that keep us at the bottom of the nation in per-capita spending on serious mental illnesses. Without sufficient funding for the treatment of brain disorders, the only future for some is more jailings, suicides, homelessness and crisis-center admissions.

The eyes of every lawmaker in the state should be riveted on the hidden fates of those with mental illnesses in Florida. They are the darkest places in the Sunshine State.

Many priorities are established before the annual legislative session begins in 2014. Now is the time to take our children and loved ones into the district offices of those who represent us in Tallahassee, and with one voice, tell them when there is help for mental illnesses, there is hope for recovery.

Thousands of lives that could have been saved, including those of our children, have already been swept away by years of neglect and political indifference. Together, we can turn this terrible tide.